I need a little help please.

If I can explain. I have a Putter pot that has been in our family for maybe 100 years or more. Apparently it was given to my grandmother by a relative who worked in the Arundel Arms pub in Dorking. My mum, aged 97, gave it to me for safe keeping, she says her mum has had the pot for as long as she can remember, as you see my mum is 97 so my grandmother must have received the pot some time before that. I think the pub might have built in the mid 1800's, there doesn't seem to be too much history on the pub.

Here is a picture of the pot and this is the inscription on the bottom of the pot. What I'm trying to work out is the stylised inscription on the side of the pot, here is a picture of it, I have got an idea what it might be, I think the pot is a measuring pot and the initials are possibly of the publican who ran the pub at the time I think his name might have been Peter Hubbard, but looking at the first initial it looks more like an R than a P so I could be totally wrong, what do you think?

It would be really nice to know a bit more about the history of this pot, the pub was demolished in 1986, so no help down that route. So if anyone has any ideas on what other routes might be available please let me know.

It's certainly made of pewter, and my guess is that it was used for mulling - either wine or beer, or both. It would have been filled with the drink to be mulled, a red-hot poker was then inserted, and the resulting (hot) drink poured into a drinking cup or glass.

It's marked 'Pint' and there's an official stamp, so it was a certified measure.

FE thanks for that, RTC, yes I can see that now, so it must have been someone's initials I should think, I wonder who. I'll quiz my mum again to see if she can remember any more information, in spite of her age she has got a pretty good long term memory.

Good find Lazarus The 2nd, as lotvic says that second link looks interesting, I must admit I saw the link but didn't get the connection with the son. It's interesting there seems to be absolutely no history with this pub at all, this site has a picture of it and it says it was demolished but according to this picture on Google maps the building is still very much there.

Maybe I should try and contact Tanya, she is obviously trying to find connections with her family tree and this is going to be a piece of the jigsaw puzzle for her, a pewter pot with someone else's name on it is worthless to me.

Trying to find out about these type of things, I generally consider contacting local museums, local historic societies, local records office or local newspapers.Even the local auction house, who have interest in these type of items, can help.

Very surprising and interesting how much response can be gained from these sources.